Building a Different Kind of E-commerce Agency

The way brands invest in digital has changed.

Not dramatically. Not overnight.
But quietly, steadily, and in response to a more uncertain economic landscape.

Budgets are tighter. Timelines are shorter. Teams are being asked to do more with less. And increasingly, brands are questioning whether the agency models that made sense five or ten years ago still make sense today.

At Lemonade, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this — not from a competitive standpoint, but from a structural one.

How should a modern e-commerce agency actually be built?

Fewer Layers. More Makers.

We believe the people closest to the work should also be closest to the client.

Our team is intentionally small and senior. Strategy, design, and development are led by practitioners who have spent years inside complex Shopify and e-commerce ecosystems.

That shapes everything: how projects are scoped, how decisions are made, how problems are solved, and how quickly we can move.

We don’t optimize for headcount.
We optimize for clarity and capability.

Built for Ongoing Commerce, Not One-Time Projects

Most e-commerce challenges today aren’t solved in a single launch.

They live in iteration, optimization, systems refinement, experimentation, integration work, and continuous improvement.

So we’ve structured Lemonade around long-term partnerships rather than large, discrete projects.

This allows us to stay close to the business, understand what’s actually working, and focus on changes that compound over time.

Senior-Led by Design

Experience matters, especially in uncertain environments.

When decisions have real financial impact, we believe they should be made by people who have seen similar situations before.

Our model centers senior practitioners doing hands-on work — not just setting direction.

That reduces translation loss.
It reduces rework.
It improves signal-to-noise.

Practical Strategy

We’re not interested in strategy as an abstract exercise.

For us, strategy lives at the intersection of business goals, platform capabilities, technical realities, and team capacity.

Good strategy should result in clear, buildable, prioritized actions.

Not decks that age quickly.

Designing Within Real Constraints

Every brand operates with constraints.

Budget. Time. Team. Technology.

Rather than pretending those don’t exist, we treat them as core inputs.

This leads to work that is more pragmatic, easier to maintain, easier to evolve, and better aligned with internal teams.

A Platform-Centered Approach

Shopify is our primary platform not because it’s trendy, but because it continues to absorb complexity at the platform level.

That matters.

It means we can spend more time designing differentiated experiences and less time rebuilding foundational infrastructure.

Our value isn’t in recreating what Shopify already does well.
Our value is in helping brands use it intelligently.

Lower Overhead, By Nature

Because we are small and senior-led, our cost structure is different.

Not as a positioning tactic — but as a consequence of how we are built.

Fewer layers.
Fewer non-billable roles.
Less internal friction.

That allows more of a client’s budget to go toward actual problem solving and execution.

Where We See Our Value

We see our value in helping brands make better platform decisions, designing systems that hold up over time, creating experiences that are easier to operate, identifying high-impact improvements, and acting as a steady technical and strategic partner.

Especially when things feel uncertain.

A Closing Thought

Economic cycles come and go.

What tends to endure are teams that are thoughtful, capable, adaptable, and close to the work.

That’s the kind of agency we’re intentionally building.